One Path: Coloring The Journey
by Lionchilde
Summary: Second collection of One Path related drabbles.


I posted these on LJ in the spring and they never made it over here. I've had some active Star Wars fic claims still out there that I started several years ago and I needed to finish up. I really don't feel like this is the right time for me to launch back into lengthy in-depth storytelling, but I can never leave my stories alone for very long without feeling like I'm somehow trying to leave behind a part of myself. One Path never really goes anywhere for me. I've been thinking about what the story meant in my life during the time that I wrote it, what it means now, and how those things largely come down to the same questions. I wondered how the characters might see those things, and this is what I came up with. It's a collection of drabbles inspired by the above phrase. I didn't write them in any kind of chronological order; they' aren't meant to retell the narrative of One Path, they just came out of whatever thought I had when I focused on each character. I'm posting them as a collection for no other reason than that they fit a theme and I don't want to make a gazillion 100 word posts.

* * *

These were part of the same fanfiction claims for which I wrote _Faith and Where It Leads You._ I kept having flashes of metaphor around the colors and things they connected to, but it would have been really difficult to write a more literal, prose narrative oriented collection of scenes, so I just went with this. Like my last collection, they're not written in any kind of chronological order; so if you're reading and can't figure out who's talking...well, it's because you're reading something set post-series, possibly from the point of view of a certain couple we've only hinted at in ONE PATH. The "colors" are from Crayola's list of crayon colors, which was specific to the challenge I was doing, but the interpretations are pretty loose.

**Mahogany: Leia  
**

The hope chest Leia kept in her heart. It was full of memories of Alderaan, which she kept in trust for those few of her people who had survived. There were trees and mountains nestled beside the ideals of peace and freedom that her world had cherished. There were quiet moments alone and joyful celebrations in the streets. There was a new home. A new Alderaan. A dream folded in satin and locked away inside her where it was safe from theft and corruption. And sometimes, when she was especially lonely, she admitted that there was corner for Han's kiss.

**Dandelion: Ani  
**

Dreams of Naboo and children laughing. He scoops them up and tosses them high in the air before they can fade away. His wife's soft hair streaming in the wind. He runs his fingers through it and feels the freshness and excitement of new love. Innocence they never really had in the desert. The way she smiles and looks at him through her lashes. The teasing glint in her eye and the touch of her fingers against his lips. The warmth of her body pressed against his in the night; the scent of her skin as he kisses her neck.

**Cream: Padme  
**

The moments between battles. The times when no one is running or hiding. When fear can be shelved for a while. She skims them off and savors them slowly, because they will disappear. She knows how to enjoy them while she has them. She's learned that on Tattooine, where everything is rough and grating, where there is grit everywhere. Nothing is smooth in the desert, except those moments. She watches the children sit together in her kitchen and talk about nothing—and everything. She savors their voices and lets the sounds wash over her, hoping it will last a while.

**Tropical Rain Forest: Han  
**

He cringes when he thinks of places like this. Hot, and sticky, and buzzing with the endless drone of insects. Beautiful? Yes, in some spots. When you can traipse your way through forest so thick that the sun never reaches the ground. When you can avoid the pitfalls and the bugs and when the noise isn't threatening to drive you completely out of your mind. There is constantly noise. Rain. Buzzing. Screeching birds. Buzzing. More rain. If it goes quiet, you know that you had better start to run. Otherwise the next sound will be a crunch you don't hear.

**Plum: Han  
**

Ripe for the pickings. Easy money. That's what Han Solo thought when he saw them. The old desert rat of a man with his two fresh-faced farmboy kids. He should have known better. If he hadn't known before, he'd certainly learned since then not to take anything at face value—especially anything with the name Kenobi. He'd been planning to take them for a ride, maybe milk this Alderaan run a little so he could pay Jabba back and pocket some extra. Instead, he got the longest, roughest ride of his life. And it still wasn't over. Far from it.

**Cranberry: Obi Wan  
**

The truth a student pulls away from. Tart and insistent. It never goes down easily. The taste will linger long after the lesson has passed. You are not perfect. Your Master is not perfect either. Neither of you is singularly responsible for the welfare of the galaxy. You cannot bear the weight of your destiny alone. You need your fears. You need your anger. You need the love you have for your friends and your family. And you need theirs in return. The Jedi Order is founded upon a mistaken understanding of the Force. And that is why it fell.

**Avocado: Bail  
**

The fledgling New Republic, constantly in need of care and attention. Each new planet, each new ally won is just the beginning. The Republic can't propagate itself. It needs to be shaped and tended and pruned, especially in difficult climates. Freedom doesn't thrive well in dark places where security is favored over liberty or where knowledge and learning are kept under lock and key. Palpatine knew that. That's why he sought to keep his empire under such tight control. The New Republic was going to be an exercise in cultivation: of trust, of confidence, of ideals, and even of truth.

**Jade: If You Can't Figure Out Who This is, I'm not Telling  
**

The voice he hears late at night. The broody eyes that haunt him—they want to be angry, but they aren't. They want to hate his family, but they can't. She's alone now, out there somewhere. He touches her sometimes, fleetingly, and wonders if he dreams it. She flinches away, and then for a second he feels her reach back. Too far. He knows he'll find her again. Knows that he can help her. What he doesn't know is when or how or if she'll trust him enough. He finally understands his brother's quest. He wishes he didn't. He waits.

**Salmon: Obi Wan  
**

Swimming upstream against a current. Into a sandbar the size of a planet. After the Gungans, he never thought he would miss fish again. But after more than a decade on Tatooine, where a lot of people half believed that fish and oceans were make believe, he had dreams about big platters of fish and crustaceans. He always felt rather bad about it; his dreams should have had more gravitas. There were much more important things to do out in the galaxy than to find a sea food bar. He kept it to himself, but he suspected that Padme knew.

**Topaz: Obi Wan  
**

It's like life. Full of colors and variations. Almost impossible to find in a pure, "precious" state. And the word "semi-precious" is not one that he understands. All things have value. In the Force, no one object or being is any more valuable than another. Some are more sensitive to its leadings, some are placed at the center of a nexus point and cause everything around them to change in response to their presence. But it goes against his nature to think of one as more precious than another, and the notion of "semi-precious" anything is well beyond his ken.

**Aqua: Obi Wan  
**

The lake at Varyinko. Her eyes are brown, but he sees it in them. She holds it the way she holds their children and their hopes for peace. Everything he cherishes is there for him to see when he looks at her. Her faith in him, which he doesn't understand. It sustains him in the desert now, much like his memory of Varyinko and the promise he made to her there. "No matter what happens tomorrow or next month or next year, you and I will be together. And as long as we are together we have nothing to fear."

**Forest: Obi Wan  
**

Where everything changed. Where the head of the beast was finally cut off and the pain could begin to heal. Where the smoke of a funeral pyre rose in testament to love's triumph over darkness. Where a family stood together against the night could not be broken. Where hard-learned lessons and ancient tradition met, kissed, and became something new. Where One Path led us. The place where endings were beginnings turned around, and beginnings were as painful as what we left behind. Where hope remained for us to pick up and carry with us. Where the Kenobi Way proved us.

**Tangerine: Obi Wan  
**

In the desert, when you see tangerine in the sky, you tread carefully. Night is falling, and the dunes become more dangerous in the darkness. When you see it on the ground, you step lightly, because something is wrong there. The sand shouldn't be that color. Something is underneath. It's a deceptively pleasant shade. Soft and pretty in the sky before the suns set, appealing on the ground for the variety it ads to an endless visage of shifting sand. Buy you watch for it, because it just doesn't belong. Tatooine bleeds colors like this until there is nothing left.

**Dusty Rose: Obi Wan  
**

The sky after the storm had passed, when the suns were only just beginning to cut through the murk and grit in the air. It was deceptively peaceful and pretty. He waited in the hermit's hut until he was sure that it was safe to leave, and then he set out for home. As he locked up the old lightsaber and pulled up his hood to venture out, a wry, rueful smile touched his lips. He and his wife had hidden their family one of the harshest and most inhospitable planets in the galaxy. Safety was a relative term.

**Olive: Shmi  
**

What she'd rather be wearing. A jumpsuit or a pair of camo pants and an overcoat while she hid in the shipyards or somewhere on the _Falcon_. Anything but these dresses. Silly, frilly things meant for princesses and politicians. They looked magnificent on her grandmother. Her aunts could wear them flawlessly, with poise and grace, and then run off to battle the Imperial Remnant or the Dark Side of the Force. They never tripped while wearing heels either. They could probably duel in heels and a dress. She was going to break her neck trying to walk down the stairs.

**Garnet: Shmi  
**

It's a promise she once wore on her finger but now keeps in her heart. She hasn't forgotten, but she doesn't know where he is anymore or if he's coming back. She keeps the ring in a box, hidden in her room because she's told everyone else it's over. She knows it probably is. She can't let go. It's a Kenobi thing. We never let go of the ones who're part of us, no matter how far they go or whether they want to be held on to or not. She'd told him that. Now she has to prove it.

**Cornflower: Jareth  
**

He doesn't like blue anymore. Especially not a deep, dark blue like that. It reminds him of those uniforms. The uniforms were darker. He knows that, but there seems to be a continuum upon which the memory triggers operate. That's the shade that most often kicks it off. Cornflower. He doesn't much like white, either because it reminds him of the stormtroopers, but white a is more unobtrusive color and the body armor is more distinctive. The blue is like the darkening sky. Not quite ominous yet, but anyone who knows what can happen in a storm knows it's coming.

**Pine: Jareth  
**

The trees on Ecarua 4, where Shmi had crashed and changed his life. He wondered where he would be now, if not for that moment. Sometimes, it made him angry. Mostly, he knew that was foolish. The Emperor's Jedi Hunters or someone else would've found him eventually. He was lucky that the Kenobi's crashed into his life. He was lucky to have a teacher like Ani, who listened and tried to help him. He was lucky to have someone like Isaly who made sure he had enough to eat and dry clothes and a warm blanket. He missed his mother.

**Lilac: Obi Wan  
**

The dress she wore—light and sleeveless, with delicate white flowers sewn along the neck. She was a picture of elegance and grace. The dress twirled when they danced. Blue eyes as sharp as any cutting edge saw through his charm and carefully cultivated manners. The delicate liquor he brought with him from another world. She sipped it and watched him over a fluted glass, gentle and welcoming. Amused by him in a way that was unsettling because it was uncritical. She saw through him but didn't see a fraud. Her smile was a terrifying mystery. He smiled back, ensnared.

**Beige: Pooja  
**

The emptiness when he was gone. She walked the streets of the Theed alone, watching couples hold hands and play with their children. She thought of the days, long ago, when her Uncle Obi Wan had been gone in the Clone Wars. She told herself it could be like that. It could be much worse. She thought of lilac liquor and of mixing caf with chocolate in the morning. She thought of laughter and wondered how long it would be. She wondered where he was. She thought again of leaving, of going with him. Her duties were cold comfort now.

**Apricot: Pooja  
**

The color of envelope he sent. A handwritten note, carried across the galaxy in the head of an R2 unit. Just a hello and a description of some trees he saw on a planet she didn't know. He said they made him think of Varyinko. She blushed and hugged the blue and white droid the way she had when she was a girl. Then she tucked the note back inside its envelope and slid in her pocket. Once, long ago, her aunt had told her that holomessages were easy. Letters were messages of love, and handwritten ones most of all.

**Mocha: Lando  
**

The new recipe she suggested the night he first made her hot chocolate. It was snowing. They sat by the fire and he watched, quiet, eyes on her face while she sipped it. Her eyes lit up, warming him more than the liquid did, and then she paused and frowned. She got the look he was beginning to be afraid of. The look that said "I have an idea." Fortunately, this one only involved mixing chocolate and caf together with a bit of milk. They tried in the morning and she made him promise to credit her when he left.

**Pewter: Pooja  
**

A cold sky pelting heavy wet drops of rain. She stood on the balcony watching the water set of rippling rings in the lake. Her hand gripped the slick wood of the railing while she looked up, straining to see the faintest glimmer at the edge of the atmosphere. She waited until the wind grew cruel and then retreated inside. She built a fire alone and huddled by it, still waiting. Her body grew warmer in the presence of the fire but the chill never left her spirit. By morning, the embers were cold too. She huged herself. And waited.

**Wild Strawberries: Lando  
**

They picked them when he came back. He cut his thumb somehow. Afterward, she could never figure out how he did that. Isaly teased her, saying it was a family tradition for women to bandage their future husband's hands. She'd blushed then. He didn't even blink. Only smiled and said that there were lots of family traditions that he still had to learn. She told him that one day, his impossible charm was going to get him into trouble. He winked and took her hand, then bent over it for a genteel kiss. Trouble would find him. But not today.

* * *

I'm sorry to say I don't have a lot of news for my fic readers right now. It's been a bad summer with more time spent having a migraine and going to a doctor than not having one. I hurt my arm this week too, so I am restricted on typing.


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